The possible role of motor development on psychological function is once again a topic of great theoretical and practical importance. The revival of this issue is stemming from a different approach to the topic, away from Gesell's interest in the long-term prediction of psychological functions from early motoric assessments,toward an attempt to understand how locomotor experience orchestrates psychological changes. Research to date is quite promising in pointing to a linkage between crawling experience and cognitive, perceptual, social, and emotional changes. However, this work, having been conducted within a quasi-experimental framework, is intrinsically limited in its contributions, despite its heuristic implications for normal and clinical populations and for brain development. Enough research has been conducted with positive findings, however, to warrant the difficult but necessary task of determining whether crawling experience is playing a causal role as an inducer or facilitator of psychological development or whether it is a maturational forecaster - a sign of important psychological changes to come. This proposal describes an experimental approach to addressing the potential role of locomotor experience on the development of sensitivity to peripheral optic flow. Three experiments are proposed in which locomotor experience is manipulated in a powered-mobility-device and developmental changes in sensitivity to peripheral optic flow are measured on the basis of infants postural compensations to side wall movement in a moving room. Experiment 1 focuses on the efficacy of infants~ ability to control the powered-mobility-device and the consequent changes in sensitivity to peripheral optic flow that result from self generated experiences in such a device. Experiment 2 examines the role of active versus passive experiences in the mobility device and consequent changes in sensitivity to peripheral optic flow, whereas Experiment 3 looks at whether differential attentiveness to the environment while locomoting contributes to the aforementioned perceptual changes.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Small Research Grants (R03)
Project #
5R03HD036795-02
Application #
2889557
Study Section
Pediatrics Subcommittee (CHHD)
Program Officer
Feerick, Margaret M
Project Start
1998-08-03
Project End
2001-05-31
Budget Start
1999-06-01
Budget End
2001-05-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
1999
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
San Francisco State University
Department
Miscellaneous
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
San Francisco
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94132
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Lejeune, Laure; Anderson, David I; Campos, Joseph J et al. (2006) Responsiveness to terrestrial optic flow in infancy: does locomotor experience play a role? Hum Mov Sci 25:4-17
Anderson, D I; Campos, J J; Anderson, D E et al. (2001) The flip side of perception-action coupling: locomotor experience and the ontogeny of visual-postural coupling. Hum Mov Sci 20:461-87